Your Money

 

It is abundantly clear that Trump's invasions of LA and D.C. did not move the needle at all in regard to crime control.  An article in The Intercept points out what those millions of dollars could actually accomplish if properly used:

Trump’s Chicago Occupation Could Cost Four Times More Than Housing City Homeless

Sending troops to Chicago could cost $1.6 million per day, four times as much as housing the city’s homeless — plus it’s illegal, experts say.

------------------

Trump’s domestic troop deployments aren’t about crime – they’re about intimidation

by Moira Donegan in The Guardian

Inspiration

 Arundhati Roy, The Interview

How to survive in a culture of fear

She speaks as eloquently as she writes.

Summer Visitor

 Margaret spotted this butterfly sitting in a puddle near our mailbox.  

 

We thought at first it might be in trouble.  However, it flew away when I approached -- and then returned again and again.  Just thirsty.

re·dun·dan·cy

 noun: redundancy

the state of being not or no longer needed or useful.

 

 The founders of the Nation apparently believed that, whoever made it to the presidency, they would at least be a gentleman with some sense of propriety.
 

That was clearly a mistake.
 

It is probably too late to take on the task of converting the government to a parliamentary system as in more civilized societies.  How about just eliminating the President's job?  No guarantee that would work, of course, but it seems worth the gamble at this point.

--------------------------

 Why Trump built a staff of incompetent sycophants

Robert Reich

Overdue for Statehood

 The United States has five major, permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. These territories are geographically distinct from the 50 states and have their own local governments, but are also subject to the laws of the U.S. federal government. (Google)

Washingtn D.C should be added to the list as it has its own local government, but is also subject to the laws of the U.S. federal government.

I doubt that Trump's grasp of history and geography includes any of the above, or the fact that his current residence was built by slave labor.  If he did know that, do you suppose he would be bothered by it?

See Rebecca Solnit's current article in The Guardian for an overview of the current circus in the District of Columbia.

Trump Is Launching a Hostile Takeover of Puerto Rico (Jacobin)

Getting The News

 When we lived in San Francisco in the 1970s there were two big news services offices there, the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International(UPI).  I sold some of my news photos to them, and those were then distributed internationally. The UPI began a steep decline in the 1980s along with newspapers in general, and sold its broadcast services to the AP.

The news services were originally called "wire services" because their news accumulation and distribution were over telegraph wires.  Telephone wires and transatlantic cables then took over the job until everything moved to the Internet.

Now, the remaining big players are AP, Reuters and Agence France-Presse (AFP). The AFP requires a subscription, but AP and Reuters are free and good general news sources.  Google News accumulates stories from all over, but the sources vary widely in quality and objectivity. A lot of people these days -- perhaps a majority -- look to social media like Facebook for their news, and that, unfortunately. is pretty much the bottom of the news barrel.

Given the ongoing decline of newspapers everywhere, journalists have struggled to keep their profession viable, in part by founding state-level cooperative news agencies. In New Mexico that includes Source New Mexico and Searchlight New Mexico.

Linda Lens as Bourke-White

News

 I've looked for a long time to Haaretz for news from Israel and reassurance that some effective resistance to Netanyahu still exists there.  Unfortunately, I see now that the newspaper online has had to go to a subscription-only format.  I'll have to give some thought to whether I want to pay to get beyond just the headlines.

Aljazeera provides free and thorough access to news about the area, but there are no Israeli voices.

Dry Again

 Just enough water left in the river for Roxie to get her feet wet.

"...This is the third time in four years the river has run dry. It was unheard of for decades before 2022. But this year seems to be the earliest we’ve seen it happen in recent memory. For anyone who drives, or walks by, it’s a grim sign of climate change for New Mexico. 

Data from the EPA shows the snowpack that feeds the Rio Grande has been steadily dropping since the 1950s... "  - KOB Ch.4

The Epstein Files

 Democrats and the media are way too enthusiastic about the possibility that the Epstein files will have some important negative effect on Trump's popularity with the bulk of his MAGA followers.

What is being overlooked is the 2016 video resulting from the Access Hollywood interview in which Trump candidly revealed the depth of his depravity.  

Recall that what followed the publishing of that interview was the election of Trump to the Presidency.

People like Bondi, Patel and Vance will be momentarily embarrassed by their previous advocacy for release of the Epstein grand jury hearing details, but Trump's teflon coating will remain intact.

1948

 When we went to watch the flamenco performance on Saturday in Old Town I felt compelled to stop momentarily to photograph this Chevrolet.  Several other people stopped to admire the car also, impressed by the faultless restoration.

I thought my little Canon digital nicely captured the character of the car. The camera is not as compact as my Panasonic Lumix, but it has the virtue of an eye-level viewfinder which makes sunny day photos feasible.

Through My Window

 The street past our house is being repaved.  The work starts at 6AM.

The early start to the workday is understandable with temperatures reaching 100 degrees.

  The work is half done at three weeks.

Saturday Night

 I posted on my photography blog about Albuquerque's Flamenco tradition.  Later that same day I got an email announcing a performance the following day in the Old Town gazebo by the Spanish Broom group.  So, that set the agenda for Saturday.  We started the evening with a fine Mexican dinner at the Church Street Cafe.  There were some dark clouds over the city when we walked to the Plaza, but then the setting sun peeked under them to light up the dancers.

The dancers, the guitarist, the tabla player and the cantaoras were all excellent.

flamenco futures

What Is Coming

 Little seems to get said in the press about the ongoing attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank; they are smaller in scale than the devastating bombardments to the south in Gaza, but even more vicious in some ways.  A good source of reporting on events is David Schulman who periodically writes in The New York Review of Books.  His latest brief report, "Netanyahu's War", looks at the courageous efforts of Israeli human rights activists to ameliorate the unrelenting attacks on Palestinian families by the invading Israeli settlers with the aid of soldiers and police. Schulman also succinctly profiles the perpetrators:

In this country, ICE is clearly making use of neighborhood informants, but violent hate groups have so far only been able to operate intermittently.  Those groups, however, are bound to be encouraged  and enabled as Trump and his Republican lackeys pour vast resources into their anti-immigrant programs.While that escalation seems inevitable, an awareness of it makes effective resistance feasible.  A good example of that was provided recently by the invasion of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles by heavily armed Federal forces.  What is most interesting about that event is that there were no arrests of undocumented people; that was the result of a well-organized resistance effort to provide documentation and timely warnings as described in an article in The Intercept, What To Do When You See ICE in Your Neighborhood.

UPDATE

Featured on the evening news was ICEBLOCK, an Iphone app which records and reports sightings of ICE agents within a 5-mile radius.  (I don't have an Iphone.  I would be interested in assessments of the app in the Albuquerque area.)

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS5

 I like my little Lumix digital camera.  Its 10 megapixels is fine for online photo sharing, and at just 7/8 inch thick it slips easily into a pocket.  The lack of an eye-level finder limits its sunny day usefulness, but I've posted a lot of pictures from it.

Recently, a couple spots started showing up in the images from the camera and I was pretty sure it was some dust on the sensor.  I decided to try cleaning the sensor following the instructions provided in this Graham Houghton YouTube video.

The camera in the video was not exactly the same model as mine, but it was close enough so I encountered little difficulty in following the instructions.  It would have been helpful to have some magnifying glasses to see the small parts in tight spaces. 

As the video warned, the little IR filter was stuck to the inside back of case when I opened it.  What I was not prepared for was that the tiny piece of plastic filter material and the small rubber frame would flutter separately down to the desktop.  I had to guess the proper orientation of the component on reassembly, but it seems to be ok.

Other than the issue with the filter, there was little difficulty in the process, and just brushing off the filter and the sensor has resulted in dust-free images from the camera.

Margaret at Level 5 at the Chaco Hotel

Flor de Alcachofa

 

Summer

 

Singing the Blues

 I've read two books recently on the subject of music, but I still don't have any sense of rhythm. I can't say I''m surprised at that outcome.  However, there are dimensions to music beyond the tap - tap - tap.  I feel I have at least made some gains in historical perspective about blues and jazz traditions thanks to Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Y. Davis.

"Ma" Rainey

Davis goes near to the beginnings of the Blues story in the 1920s with Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and shortly afterward as the torch is passed on to Bessie Smith.  Davis provides a very thorough account of how the themes and forms of the Blues developed out of the daily life struggles of those performers, including the challenges of segregation and racism.  Davis' book provides a context for the period that I had not seen anywhere before.  The quality of the early recordings is not always the best, but the last half of the book contains the complete lyrics of all the songs.

 

Billie Holiday - Wikipedia

 A couple of the last chapters in Davis' book are devoted to the career of one of my long-time favorites, Billie Holiday.  While the earlier Blues performers are lauded in the book for their expressions of Black culture, language and experience, Holiday's contribution - as portrayed by Davis - was primarily a combination of courage and political conviction.  What Davis was talking about, of course, was the creation of a song from the poem by Abel Meeropol, Strange Fruit. To champion and perform a popular song about lynching was quite a gamble in 1939, but it is hard to imagine any work of art in any genre ultimately  having more social and political impact.

When I actually got around to listening to some of the early recorded performances by "Ma" Rainey and Bessie Smith I was delighted to realize that I already knew some of their songs.  It turns out that quite a few of those early Blues tunes were picked up and performed by another great favorite closer to my time, Nina Simone. There is also a clear parallel from Holiday to Simone in the latter's 1964 composition and recording of Mississippi Goddam.  (Picture of Nina Simone by By Gerrit de Bruin - in Wikipedia)

Sunday at the Museum

 

Lock 'em Up?

wikipedia

A picture of ex-congressman Robert Menendez about to begin his eleven-year imprisonment got me thinking again about the desired and actual value of incarceration.  I'm sure such penalties do make politicians more careful in how they subvert the law, but it seems pretty clear the threat is not really effective as a deterrent.

Our local DA has been harping lately on the need for accountability to discourage criminal activity, including gun violence committed by teenagers.  I would suggest that locking up children is of no use whatsoever.  The issue with teenagers and a lot of immature adults is largely one of impulse control.  That kind of personality deficit is immune to anything short of immediate consequences. Publicizing the idea that violent acts might result in getting caught and suffering legal retribution has all the deterrent impact of a mosquito bite.

Meanwhile, the eleven-year sentence handed down to Menendez is going the have the primary result of costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands.  It seems to me that a more effective strategy would be to put the congressman to work doing useful tasks in the community like street cleaning, perhaps in a striped uniform.  (And, just a year or two of that might suffice.) Of course, there would still be a cost in regard to compliance and security, but at least taxpayers would be getting something tangible for their money.

--------------

Ex-Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner given house arrest (Aljazera)

Prison abolition movement in the United States (wikipedia)

The June 14 Protests

 A very good analysis of the extent and significance of the No Kings protests is at Jacobin.

Getty Images

I think that one thing the demonstrations point to is that, in a country where a rather small percentage of the eligible voters bother to cast a ballot, the winner will be the candidate that turns out the most voters, regardless of majority sentiments.

Trump is certainly providing a lot of motivation.  We'll see if that motivation is maintained among the democracy defenders.  The mid-terms will be a good test in terms of both the voter turnout, as well as the extent to which members of Congress are paying attention.

Mantis

 I found this little Praying Mantis on my desk this evening.

I thought at first that it had a bit of lint caught on its tail.  On looking at a closer shot it seemed he had just crawled out of his skin as he grew too big for it.

Nice to see this little guy.  I thought maybe they had all been poisoned by the neighborhood exterminator.  I'm hoping he has a taste for ants.

My New Trike

 When I first tried out this three-wheeler I was surprised to find I could not seem to steer it.  When I put pressure on the peddles the thing just wanted to turn sharply.  It baffled me as I had been riding bicycles all my life until I started falling off because of weakness due to tendon injuries.

I found a youtube video of a fellow demonstrating how to ride.  I saw that he had a very upright posture and he was steering with just two fingers.  That encouraged me to try again following his example.  I also found that pushing the handlebar on the side opposite the desired turn direction was a better technique.  Once I was able to get myself up and down the street, the process began to seem more natural and intuitive.

 The Old Trike

I played around with 3D drawing programs about twenty years ago and one of my first efforts was to reconstruct my memory of my first trike in the mid-1940s.  I don't recall any difficulty in learning to ride this one.  Kids seem to take to the task with no problem.

Happy trails!

Déjà vu

 In rhe 1930s in Germany immigrants from eastern Europe, mostly Jews, were seen as economic and criminal threats.  They were rounded up and confined to detention camps.  Some brave souls sheltered and hid a few, but in the end millions were murdered.

It surprises me that so many people seem to fail to see the parallel.

---------------------------

We are witnessing the first stages of a Trump police state

Robert Reich in The Guardian

Green

 We took the dog for a walk at the river this morning.  The riverside forest is bursting with growth, due in part to some unusually heavy rains for this time of year.

There are mulberries ready to eat,  I'm sure I'll find plenty of blooming yerba mansa, and maybe some wolfberries, next time I walk further south along the river.

It seems that a similar pattern of storms have appeared all across the country.  We have experienced only brief and localized flooding, along with one death in a flood control arroyo.

I don't think the current weather pattern indicates any respite from climate change.  It seems more likely that we are just seeing examples of increasing frequency of weather extremes.

Trump is methodically dismantling any efforts to control the production of greenhouse gases and even destroying the key resources for monitoring weather and climate.  There is some pushback even among Republicans to defunding sustainable energy projects, but it seems quite possible that adverse climate change could be irreversible by the time we have put Trump behind us.

A Long Journey to Fajitas

 

The Immigrant Experience

Something to Declare by Julia Alvarez is a series of articles and essays about adapting to a new culture and a new language after fleeing to the U.S.  to escape an imminent threat in the Dominican Republic which was then ruled by a dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo.  As I wrote here before, I have long been a enthusiastic follower of Alvarez's writing. It has always seemed amazing to me that someone could arrive here as a child with only a rudimentary grasp of English and end up being recognized as one of the greats among contemporary authors writing in English.

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is a novel about the flight from horrific violence which has driven so many Mexicans to seek refuge in the United States.  The author spent four years researching and writing the story of how a mother and her young son traverse the length of Mexico overland while under constant threat from cartel gangsters and the often corrupt and equally violent police. Much of the vertiginous journey is on top of railcars of north-bound trains referred to as La Bestia. The final leg is under the guidance of human traffickers through the unforgiving Sonoran Desert which has claimed countless migrant lives.

Dreaming of Home by Cristina Jimenez tells the story of being brought to the U.S. as a child by her parents who were fleeing violence and a chaotic economy in Ecuador.  Jimenez recounts the trauma of growing up in a country in which she felt unwanted and in constant fear of deportation due to a lack of documentation.  Eventually, fellow students and teachers helped her toward the courage to speak out about the fundamental human rights due to her and her generation of young immigrants.  She is Co-Founder and former Executive Director of  United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country, and she is currently a Distinguished Lecturer with the City College of New York’s Colin Powell School and a co-instructor with Leadership for Democracy and Social Justice. Jimenez was instrumental in United We Dream’s successful campaign for President Obama to sign Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) into law.

Growing Up

 During my first two years at the University of Washington  Dwight Eisenhower was still President.  He had led the defeat of Fascism in Europe, presided over a booming post-war economy during his two terms,  and fired MacArthur before the General could drop an A-bomb on North Korea.  My stepfather, who had served in the Pacific, supported Eisenhower's candidacy, as did my mother, whose first husband had perished in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. I recall wearing an "I Like Ike" button, but I really only had a sketchy view of the issues then.

Being a Land Grant College, the UW was required to offer mandatory R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officer Training Corps) courses which were mandatory for the first two years in school for every male student. We learned some elementary military procedures including map reading, and we marched in a gym building once weekly wearing WWII-era uniforms and shouldering M1 rifles.  I was conflicted about the experience.  The uniform was the same my father had worn and I respected his sacrifice. At the same time I disliked having to walk around the campus wearing the uniform and I resented the requirement to submit to the authority of the military drill instructors.

The end of the school year was marked by a brief R.O.T.C. parade and an assembly of the uniformed students in the Quad. As we lined up in for the final speeches, a loudspeaker smuggled into the top floor of one of the nearby buildings began blaring out the lyrics of the Mickey Mouse theme song: M-I-C-K-E-Y...  It was only mildly humiliating as I was faceless in the uniformed crowd.  I vaguely understood and appreciated the anti-authoritarian message.  I remember thinking that the protestors had shown some courage in challenging the event.  I don't recall hearing anything about penalties being exacted against them.

In spite of some innate skepticism about the wielding of political and military power, I bought into much of the country's foreign policies over the next five years. That loyalty eroded as the war effort started by Eisenhower and intensified by Kennedy against the Vietnamese people heated up.  In the end, I joined the marches against the war and I cheered when Lyndon Johnson resigned as the country became ungovernable.

It seemed for a time under Kennedy, and more so under Obama, that there was reason for some optimism that the country was outgrowing racism, misogyny and  xenophobia. That was clearly delusional, so it seems now that we really need MICKEY again. *

----------------------

* Jacinda Ardern might do.

Don't forget to celebrate on June 14th !

Sing along

Bugs

 There is a great series running on PBS right now, Bugs That Rule the World.  The first episode I watched featured dragonflies and the Preying Mantis, a species I've always enjoyed meeting up with.  I haven't seen any for a while now, and I think I may know why.

A fellow knocked on my door recently to propose exterminating troublesome insects.  He offered to kill all the ants and spiders inside and outside my house, and pointed up the street indicating other customers in the neighborhood.

While we do have some difficulties with the legion of tiny ants that live in the walls of our old house, I feel like we can deal with that without resorting to massively lethal measures.  Taking care to keep our counters clear of crumbs or other ant attractors minimizes the problem.  The black widow spiders we used to see around the house foundation never tried to come inside, and they were clearly helping to keep bug infestations in check.

So I'm hoping a lot of people will tune into the PBS series and start to appreciate the crucial role bugs play in the community of living things.

 

The Library

 This morning we visited a very fine exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum about the history of the Albuquerque Special Collections Library, Open to All: A Century of Access at the Special Collections Library.

Photo courtesy of the Albuquerque Museum

 

There is also a Youtube documentary (which includes an interview of Joe Van Cleave!)

The Spanish/Pueblo Revival style building was originally the main and only library in town for many years.  It now houses a non-circulating collection of books and artifacts including a collection of antique printing machinery.

The exhibit got me to thinking about how central to my life libraries have been everywhere I have lived.  My first library experience was visits by the local branch librarian to my West Seattle elementary school. She made presentations about the latest additions to the collection of children's books which always seemed very exciting to me.  I was always motivated to go immediately to the library to read the reviewed books.

Mr. Popper's Penguins was one of the books I recall first hearing about from the visiting librarian.  It seemed a great adventure story about charming animals at the time.  Looking back on it now, I am appalled by the idea of taking wild animals out of their natural environment to be household pets or circus performers.

Another book from those early days was the fictional tale of several children who escape the Japanese invasion of their island home using a sailboat.  The idea that children close to my age could play a heroic role in the recently concluded war was very captivating. I have tried several times to find that book over the years, but can't recall the book title and have been unable to track it down with search descriptions.

My elementary school had its own library as well, and from it I was able to read about Roy Chapman Andrews' life as an explorer in Mongolia. That book proved very influential in my life, motivating me to seek adventure in exotic locations.

These days, my library visits are most often to the Los Griegos branch of the Albuquerque Public Library.  There is a good collection of books there and a welcoming atmosphere.  A few years ago the branch manager, Nicholas Newlin, was very helpful to our New Mexico Film Photographers group in organizing a photo exhibit at the library.

 NM Film Photographers Exhibit -- Los Griegos Library, 2020

While I enjoy the opportunity to browse the book shelves at Los Griegos or the other branch libraries in town, I more often borrow Kindle books online through the library website. That is an especially nice option for me as much of my reading is of Spanish language novels.  Since Spanish is my second language I often want to look up the meaning of unfamiliar words, and that just requires a single click on the word when I am reading with Kindle. 

So the way I interact with libraries has undergone some changes over the years, but it is no less important to me now than it was when I was first hearing about new books to read from that Seattle librarian.

---------------------------

* See also on PBS/Independent Lens

Free For ALL: The Public Library
How public libraries shaped a nation and remain a beloved sanctuary for Americans today.

Truth 1, Trump 0

 So Trump has put on another of his White House dog and pony shows in an attempt to humiliate another leader of an allied country with transparent lies.  Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, responded with facts and unflappable dignity, making Trump look the fool.

Cyril Ramaphosa (Wikipedia)

* A check of Trump's false claims about white genocide in South Africa (REUTERS)

Thinking About Flying

There may be a job more stressful than that of air traffic controllers, but it is hard to imagine what that might be.  How are people motivated to take on such work in places like Newark or Washington D.C.?

Those are questions currently on the desk of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.  He has proposed a massive reconstruction and modernization of the air traffic control system.  That is a process that will take at least four years, provided that the necessary billions are made available.

Trump, of course, places the blame for the currently disastrous state of the system on the Biden administration. Unmentioned is that fact that the proposal of Biden's transport secretary, Buttigieg, to massively invest in rebuilding the system was torpedoed by congressional Republicans.

It is also worthwhile to look back to the opportunity that was lost in 1981 when Ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers who had struck for better working conditions. Reagan brought in active military controllers as strike breakers, and did an expert PR job of manipulating media accounts to minimize concerns then about controller job stress. That effectively set the pattern for the subsequent twenty-year development of failed policy and performance.

Duffy, to his credit, cut short the DOGE initiative to include controllers in their firing spree, but the subsequent loss of FAA analysts and support staff cannot be without consequences.  That shortsightedness seems due in part to overwhelming emphasis on equipment upgrades while continuing to minimize the centrality of human preparedness and performance.

* A Newark air traffic controller on how it felt when systems went dark (NPR)

Damage Assessment

A lot of media attention was given to the Signalgate incident where it was revealed that top Administration officials were using an unofficial and  possibly insecure chat service to discuss ongoing operations. So far, the only casualty has been the meeting organizer, Mike Waltz, and he has only been shuffled off to the walking wounded job of UN ambassador.

Larger issues of national security vulnerability have gone under the radar.  A recent nytimes article gives some hints at what might be usefully considered:

"... The C.I.A. plans to cut more than 1,000 staff positions through attrition over the next few years as the Trump administration shrinks the federal government..."

"... A spokeswoman for the agency did not directly confirm the plan to reduce its size but said in a statement that John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, was 'moving swiftly; to ensure that its work force was responsive to the administration’s national security priorities.'..."

Perhaps we should be reassured that the administration has taken time to set some priorities, though the possibility that those priorities might actually pertain to security seems a little remote.

Cutting a thousand jobs from something as complicated as the intelligence establishment presents some obvious threats to performance and efficiency.  However, of even more concern is the immediate outcome of the staff cuts, which is that there will be a multitude of former analysts and operatives out looking for jobs.

It is a good bet that those job-hunters' resumes - complete with pictures - are even now flooding the internet and sparking the interest of corporate recruiters.  You can also be sure that those hungry, often disgruntled former agency staffers will come under scrutiny by the foreign intelligence agencies of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. All of whom, of course, have massive capabilities for online surveillance, and plenty of expertise in the cultivation of double agents.
 

As irritated as those job hunters might be at the course of events, the vast majority are patriots, and have no doubt received special training to alert them to possible threats. Still, it is not inconceivable that one out of that thousand might be tempted by an opportunity for retribution and enrichment.  And, after all, that has happened before.

It might be argued that the people let go have been severed from ongoing operations, but of course they took a lot of knowledge with them, and many friendships will continue with active agency staff. 

So, recognizing the potential for damage, what might be done?  Having dealt itself a crippling blow, the agencies are ill prepared to keep an eye on where all the discards go.  Probably the most effective and economical strategy would be just to hire them all back.

Big Pharma - Big Bucks

 The best dissection of Big Pharma I have come across is the recent article by David Armstrong at ProPublica, 

In The Price of Remission Armstrong uses his own experience with cancer treatment as a starting point for explaining the complexities of drug development and the exploitation of human misery to make stratospheric profits.

The implications of how RFK Jr. and the DOGE team will make things even worse are not directly dealt with in the article, but they are easily deduced.

It is also worth noting that Big Pharma contributions to politicians are nearly equally divided between the two major parties, with the Republicans having only a slight edge.

At the Museum

 Two big exhibits at either end of the Albuquerque Museum.

Light, Space, and the Shape of Time

April 5 - July 20, 2025

 

Plastic, glass and neon with a '60s vibe.  I am not very moved by these kinds of large, abstract sculpture installations.  The show did not live up to its rather pretentious title.  I thought the most interesting and fun piece was the one featured at the entrance to the gift shop.

 

Focus on Youth

May 3 – June 1, 2025

A big photography show by Albuquerque public school students with lots of polished, inspiring work that is as good or better than what can be found in art gallerys around town.

 

Trevor Martinez, Guitar Highlights, Sandia High School, Grade 12

Mayday Mayday Mayday

 An early futurist take on the development of artificial intelligence was that it would replace the need for human labor and usher in an age of leisure for everyone.  At this point the effects on job availability are uncertain, but the rosy glow of the early predictions is fading fast.

For a more realistic view it is worth looking at how things have developed in the social media industry.  In that trillion-dollar undertaking the tangible benefits have gone overwhelmingly to the billionaire class.  Useful, objective news has been subverted by an avalanche of lies and conspiracy theories. The early promise of the internet to empower ordinary people has been undermined by kowtowing to authoritarianism.

Resistance is still possible.  There is still access available to independent initiatives, online and offline. The time to speak up and to act is now.

***

Tyrants like Trump always fall – and we can already predict how he will be dethroned

Simon Tisdall in The Guardian

No Access

 What happened when Representative Melanie Stansbury visited the Albuquerque Social Security Office to see how staff and budget cuts were affecting her constituents.

                                  __________________________

"At least 40 Field Offices across the country report that these staffing reductions result in the loss of more than a quarter of their staff. This means longer wait times for appointments and longer lines once people arrive.

That’s why I visited the Social Security office in Albuquerque to conduct oversight and find out more about what is going on. We were denied entry past the waiting room and instead given a generic phone number in another state to schedule a meeting. Folks, this was AFTER our already scheduled meeting was cancelled last minute for no good reason. Here’s what I was able to uncover: staffing is down by over half, computer systems have been crashing, call times have more than doubled, it is taking days for members of our communities to reach anyone who can answer questions, and people are now being forced to come in person and can’t get appointments for months out to get their issues resolved around the country.

These impacts are hurting real people, including our seniors, people living with disabilities, and survivors. As the Ranking Member of the DOGE Subcommittee on Oversight, it is my job to get to the bottom of this. Hands off Social Security! "
 

Fifty Years

 It seemed like the Viet Nam war would never end.  When it finally did I could hardly believe it.

How Photography From the Vietnam War Changed America (New York Times)

Kyoichi Sawada/Bettmann/Corbis, via Getty Images

At The Ponderosa

Our favorite nearby brew pub.  We nearly always order fish and chips.
 

Margaret gets a glass of Kölsch.  I like the Ripsaw Red.